Miami and The Beaches: Luxury Condo Sales On The Rise

As difficult as it may seem to fathom, given the current macroeconomic data plaguing South Florida, indications are growing that the luxury condo resale market in Miami-Dade County is back.

Foreign buyers with strong currencies complemented by a scattering of wealthy domestic purchasers acquired more $1 million condos in 2011 than in the last year of the South Florida real estate boom in 2006, according to an analysis of data from the Southeast Florida Shared Multiple Listing Service Database.

Buyers purchased nearly 590 condos for at least $1 million each in 2011 after acquiring less than 500 high-priced units in 2006.

On a year-over-year basis, the 2011 luxury condo resale activity represents a 29 percent increase from 2010 when fewer than 460 units were purchased for at least $1 million each in Miami-Dade.

Weeks into 2012, an additional 100 luxury units are already under contract waiting to transact.

Topping the list for the most expensive condo resale in the year 2011 is a penthouse in the Setai Resort & Residences in Miami Beach that sold for $21.5 million.

A pair of units in towers on South Pointe Drive in Miami Beach’s South of Fifth neighborhood rounded out the top three rankings for the highest priced resales for 2011.

In separate transactions, buyers paid $11.5 million for a penthouse in the Apogee condominium and $10.6 million for a high-floor unit in the Continuum On South Beach, respectively.

The resurgence in the luxury resale market has inspired an increasing number of owners – who had previously been unwilling to accept lower prices during the last five years of the real estate crash – to put nearly 1,000 condos on the resale market with an asking price of at least $1 million each.

Nearly 20 ultra-luxury condominium units are on the resale market for at least $10 million each with one unit asking as much as $38 million in the wealthy enclave of Bal Harbour.

Developers are also taking notice of the resurgence in the luxury condo market.

At least five new luxury condo towers – ranging from the one-unit-per-floor Regalia to the drive-the-car-to-the-unit Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach – are planned or under construction in Miami-Dade County where the proposed sales prices are expected to surpass $1 million each.

The luxury condo revival in Miami-Dade County is not occurring at the same pace in Broward County where foreign buyers play a somewhat more limited role in transactions.

Buyers purchased less than 70 luxury condo resales in Broward County in 2011 compared to 100 high-priced units at the top of the market in 2006.